AN INTRODUCTION
Tea was in full swing when Geraldine at last found her way to the
dining-hall. She stood for a few moments in embarrassed hesitation
just inside the doorway, until a girl who was sitting at the head of
the nearest table spoke to her.
"You haven't got a place yet, have you? Won't you come and sit by me?"
It was Monica Deane, the girl who slept in Number Fourteen Cubicle in
the Pink Dormitory. Geraldine recognised her with a feeling of relief,
and moved across to her table with alacrity. Monica spoke to a small
girl sitting on her left hand.
"Shove up one, Vera, will you? And ask the others to move up, too.
This is a new girl in my dorm, and I want to talk to her," she said,
with a friendly smile at Geraldine as the girl slipped thankfully into
the seat thus provided for her. "Pass the bread and butter down,
Mamie," she added to somebody farther up the table. "And, Gwennie, run
and get another cup of tea." Then, having thus attended to the new
girl's immediate wants, she turned round to her with the obvious
intention of commencing a conversation.
"Do you mind if I ask you some questions?" she began.
"Not at all," said Geraldine, looking up with a shy little smile. "I
expect you want to know what my name is, don't you?"
"Well, yes--that was one of them," laughed Monica. "You've been asked
that question before, evidently, from the tone in which you said it."
Geraldine laughed too. Already Monica's friendliness was dispelling
that feeling of nervous resentment and shyness occasioned by the
encounter with Dorothy and Phyllis. Neither of these two girls were at
Monica's table, Geraldine was glad to see. The occupants of Table
Number Three were mostly smaller children, none of whom the new girl
had come across before. She turned to her new friend with a look of
gratitude.
"I should just think I have! But so far, you're the only person who's
asked me if I minded."
"Well, won't you reward me for my politeness by giving me the
information?" asked Monica. And Geraldine responded to the kindly
interest by confiding, not merely her name and age, but also many
details of her home life. By the time the meal was over, Monica was
conversant with much of the new girl's past history (always excepting
the events of that October night; Geraldine never willingly referred to
that terrible time)--not an altogether unusual experience for Monica,
who had been the recipient of many a new girl's confidences. The
senior had vivid recollections of her own first days at school, and she
always made a point of being especially friendly to newcomers during
their first few weeks at Wakehurst Priory. It had, in fact, become
quite a recognised thing in the school for Monica Deane to take any
exceptionally forlorn-looking new girl under her wing.
"What do we have to do now?" asked Geraldine, as, tea being finished,
she rose reluctantly from her chair. She recognised the fact that she
would not be able to stay with the elder girl all the evening, and she
dreaded being left once more to her own devices.
"Well, that just depends. Nobody does anything regular the first day
of term. Usually, of course, it's prep after tea. You've finished
your unpacking, haven't you? Then I should think you'd better go to
your sitting-room and find a book to read. I wonder which sitting-room
you'll be in? Have you any idea which form you're going to belong to?"
"Oh yes. Miss Oakley sent me some examination questions to answer; and
when I'd sent them in, she wrote back saying I should be put in the
Lower Fifth," replied Geraldine.
"The Lower Fifth? Oh, well, come along then, and I'll show you your
sitting-room," said Monica briskly. "You've got an awfully nice room.
The Lower Fifth is one of the biggest forms at Wakehurst, and in
consequence it's been given the biggest sitting-room. You'll find
plenty of people to be friends with you there. Dorothy Pemberton's in
it, and Phyllis Tressider--you know, the girl who has the cubicle next
to yours."
"Oh, _is_ she?" said Geraldine blankly, a feeling of dismay creeping
over her. Then a sudden impulse moved her to confide in Monica.
"I don't think I like either of them, much," she volunteered.
"Especially not Phyllis Tressider."
"Oh, nonsense!" said Monica, stopping before a door and pausing with
her hand on the knob to give some good advice to the new girl. "Look
here, now, don't you go imagining things! Phyllis and Dorothy are both
quite nice girls on the whole, and you'll get on all right with them,
if you don't take too much notice of what they say just at first.
They've always slept side by side in those two cubicles, ever since
they came to the school, so naturally they're feeling a bit upset at
being separated. Though, I must say, they've rather asked for it--the
pranks those two used to get up to in the dormitory last term! But, of
course, they know that it has nothing to do with you, really; and
they'll soon come round and be nice to you--so long as you're nice to
them. You'll find they'll make much better friends than they will
enemies--and, if you take my advice, you'll try your best to keep them
friends."
And with this, for Monica, unusually lengthy homily, the elder girl
opened the door of the Lower Fifth sitting-room, and pushed Geraldine
inside.
Judging from the number of people congregated in the sitting-room, the
Lower Fifth was certainly a very big form. Geraldine shrank back a
little as Monica ushered her in, bewildered and shy of the crowd of
girls confronting her. But Monica laid her hand on her shoulder and
led her across the room to a group of girls clustered round a vivacious
individual with a crop of short curly hair, who was perched up on the
edge of a table, swinging her legs to and fro and talking vigorously.
"Sorry to interrupt," began Monica, still with her hand on Geraldine's
shoulder. "But this is a new girl, who tells me that she is going to
be in your form. Her name's Geraldine Wilmott, and she's fifteen years
old, and you needn't all start catechising her directly I'm out of the
room. I fancy she's had about enough of that already. Jack,"
addressing the girl on the table, "will you have an eye to her for this
evening? Put her up to things a bit, will you? and tell her what to do
and where to go, there's a dear."
"Righto! Delighted, I'm sure!" replied Jack, stretching out a friendly
hand to Geraldine. "How do you do? What dorm are you in? Have you
unpacked your things yet? Is this the first time you've been to
school, or did you go to a day-school before? What part of the country
do you hail from, and how many brothers and sisters have you got?"
A shout of laughter from the group of girls around her greeted this
string of questions, and Monica made a laughing protest.
"Oh, Jack--and I told you not to go asking her questions!"
"Well--but you said 'after you had gone out of the room,' so I thought
I had better start straight away while there was still time," replied
Jack, with an injured air, which was belied, however, by the twinkle in
her laughing eyes. Then she turned to Geraldine in an impulsive
friendly way that it was impossible to resist.
"You needn't answer them, though, if you don't want to. Come along and
I'll get you a locker. We've bagged all the nicest ones already, I'm
afraid. But I'll get you the decentest that is left, and next term
maybe you'll get a better one." And Monica left the Lower Fifth
sitting-room feeling that she had done her best for the new girl.
"I'm afraid she's in for a rough time of it, though," the senior
thought to herself, as she made her way along the corridors to the
small study which, as a member of the Sixth Form, she was entitled to
have to herself. "She's just the type of sensitive girl who gets on
worse at school than any other sort, although at heart they're usually
quite nice kids. Still, if anybody can make her feel at home in the
Lower Fifth, it's Jack. I wish she'd come across her before Phyllis
and Dorothy appeared on the scene. Oh, well, it's none of my business,
I suppose! I like the kid, but she'll have to fight her own battles.
I dare say she'll shake down all right in the end--they mostly do."
And with this comforting reflection the Sixth Form girl entered her
study, and banished the thought of Geraldine Wilmott from her mind.